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Are you ready to start your career in engineering? Apprenticeships with the Erodex Group

Are you ready to start your career in engineering?

Do you want to learn from the best, most experienced engineers, earning while you’re learning, at Europe’s biggest state-of-the-art machine shop?

Are you looking for a company that’s passionate about putting young talent at the forefront of their workforce, encouraging the next generation of engineers?

If you answered yes to the above, then you’re in the right place.

Who is Erodex?

Watch our video below for a brief overview of Erodex.

Erodex – The leading edge for apprenticeships.

At Erodex, we strive to maintain the leading edge in everything we do, and that includes our apprenticeship scheme. An apprentice joining Erodex can benefit from the following.

A competitive salary
Career support and finding the right route for you
Investment in your training and development
Working towards professional qualifications
Learning new skills from real work experience
Yearly incremental salary increases
Learning from world class colleagues
Making friends for life

If you want to earn while you learn, we pay more than the national minimum wage, and during your first year, you can expect to earn £6 per hour, with gradual increases in line with age, skills and national minimum wage across year 2.

We aim to develop your skills, and offer the best workplace experience we can in order to home grow talent that we can retain, once the apprenticeship is complete.

What types of apprenticeships are available to you?

We offer apprenticeships in multiple disciplines across Erodex sites. Here, you can hear from some of our past apprentices and their career journey

So how do apprenticeships work?

As an apprentice, you are a paid employee at Erodex.

Most of your time will be spent with us learning in our world class machining facility and supporting departments.

In year one, you will spend two days per week at college, developing your understanding of engineering via a mix of classroom and workshop learning as you work towards your professional qualification.

From year two onwards, you will spend one day per week at college and the rest of your week back with us within the business.

Erodex apprenticeships start at level 3 (A-Level equivalent) which lasts for a minimum of three years.

We also offer progression up to degree level as part of our apprenticeship scheme for the right individuals and based on your chosen role within the business.

Our commitment to you

At Erodex we are serious about apprenticeships.

In return for your hard work and commitment, we provide you with world class training, education, and life experiences.

We are committed to providing a great apprentice experience for our apprentices.

That’s why we are pursuing accreditation for the Make UK Engineering Apprenticeships: Employer Kitemark through Next Gen Makers, which recognises excellent employers of engineering apprentices in the UK.

This means that you know that when you choose an Erodex apprenticeship, you’re choosing a company that cares about you.

Apply now!

We have two fantastic apprenticeships this year, the vacancies are:

Apprentice Engineering Technician (CNC Machinist)
Apprentice Engineering Technician (Grinding)

For more information on these positions, or to apply, please contact deborah@nextgenmakers.co.uk

Erodex inspire the next generation with innovative VR experience

Erodex UK, specialists in graphite and graphite machining for the aerospace industry, have launched an innovative virtual reality experience to inform and inspire Engineering students at a local college towards a career in their industry. Over a period of two days, team members from Wednesbury based Erodex ran four sessions for over sixty full time engineering students at City of Wolverhampton College. The sessions were the first to include a new virtual reality experience, which enabled students to get a first-hand 3D insight into Erodex’s state of the art graphite machining facility, hear from a range of team members and more broadly, gain an understanding of the variety of roles available at a company like Erodex. The virtual reality experience was complimented by ‘meet the employee’ Q&A discussions including former apprentice and current Production Manager Ellie Emery, Engineer and Apprentice Mentor John Webb and James Kirk, Operations Director. During the sessions, students were also set a task to complete in small groups with the aim of enhancing their learning experience and providing more depth to their level of insight into real world engineering. This required them to inspect several graphite machined electrodes using digital micrometers, comparing each to the kind of exacting quality standards that apply across all components produced for the aerospace industry. Students were then informed of the apprenticeship roles available this summer at Erodex, with those interested in learning more being invited to apply for work experience placements with the company. James Kirk, Operations Director at Erodex comments: “Like so many engineering firms Erodex are looking to the next generation to future proof our workforce. 2023 sees the relaunch of our apprenticeship scheme, something which we are committed to making sure is best in class. “We want the best young engineering talent to aspire to work for us and we understand that for that to happen we need comprehensive local outreach to raise our brand awareness as a good employer and a top choice for engineering apprenticeships. “The time commitment to deliver these sessions is considerable, so we wanted to ensure that we created a memorable and informative experience for the students – many of whom are now fully aware of what we do, who we do it for and how they could be the engineers of the future with us”. Daniel Degg, Head of Employer Engagement & Business Development at City of Wolverhampton College adds: “We are delighted to have hosted Erodex for these educational sessions and for our students to be able to access them. The virtual reality experience is very innovative, and we are pleased to be able to utilise this technology to engage and inspire students. “As a college, it is important that we give our students an insight into what working within engineering is like and the range of opportunities available to them. This was not only a fantastic way of achieving that but the variety of activities within the sessions ensured that the students we always engaged and had multiple opportunities to learn. “It is also important for members of our teaching staff to gain a better understanding of local companies like Erodex and the industries in which they work, as we are now more able to advise students moving forward”. This summer Erodex will be taking on two Apprentice Engineering Technicians within its’ graphite machining facility in Wednesbury, West Midlands. The company expects their Apprenticeship scheme to expand significantly within the coming years covering a range of roles across both the machining facility and the company’s HQ in Halesowen. James Kirk concludes: “Overall we were delighted with how well the VR sessions were received. We acknowledge that for SME’s like us to compete for young engineering talent we need to differentiate and innovate, as evidenced by this project. We expect to expand on this activity moving forward, potentially opening the opportunities up to deliver sessions in local high schools as well as colleges. “To achieve this, we are fortunate to have the ongoing support of two specialised organisations, Digital Gap - who created the VR experience and Next Gen Makers, whose Engineering Apprenticeships: Best Practice Programme we are following to benchmark our approach and ensure our apprenticeship scheme is best in class as it scales”.

Read Time: 4 minutes

New Apprentices to give Erodex the leading edge for years to come

Halesowen based aerospace suppliers Erodex Tooling Solutions have recently taken on an additional Apprentice Design Engineer, taking the total number of apprentices recruited by the Erodex UK group to six within the past 18 months alone.George Crocker joins the expanding Erodex Tooling Solutions (ETS) Design Team, with the apprenticeship scheme delivered by the City of Wolverhampton College. Having serviced Rolls Royce’s tooling requirements as part of a long-standing working relationship, Erodex Tooling Solutions has amassed an unrivalled level of experience and continue to grow, particularly within the aerospace sector.This growth has been enabled due to the expertise of Erodex’s dedicated team, who provide robust solutions in the aerospace and IGT sectors, along with the wider engineering community. In addition to having a robust design team, ETS are fully equipped to manufacture the finished solution completely, enabling a customer’s component to enter production in a reduced time scale. This enables ETS to provide a complete 'one stop shop' solution, which is a real differentiator in the market.As part of the continued expansion of the design team, Erodex felt now was the right time to bring through the next generation of design engineers within the company and take on an apprentice. Erodex Tooling Solutions are no stranger to investing in the next generation, having already taken on two apprentice toolmakers within the past 12 months for their Halesowen based ETS Machine Shop.“The Erodex Group are aware of the skills shortage facing engineering in our region. When you consider niche skills such as those of a toolmaker, this is particularly poignant and highlights the need for us to start to grow our own talent”, comments Director Steve Rolinson.Erodex also have a good working relationship with Dudley College and currently have several apprentices enrolled in their courses. Within the same timeframe, a further apprentice, Hollie Mitchell was taken on in accounts and another in the ETS Office Administration department, who is now employed by Erodex as an Office Administrator.Director Steve Rolinson concludes: “We are proud to be able to give these talented young people a start to their careers in engineering. At the same time, we are building our workforce of the future. We commit a significant amount of time to training our apprentices on the job and look forward to seeing them progress within the company. There will be opportunities for these individuals to grow within the business moving forward as we help them to develop the required skills. Everybody at the Erodex Group wishes them the best moving forward and I am sure that they will all continue to enjoy successful careers with us”.